Tier lists and Character Discussion Thread

[davidkong07]

Kula actually has really effective corner pressure and great damage off 1 meter 1 drive. the fact that her mid screen combos corner carry adds to her effectiveness. her st. B and cr. B are both really great buttons. i think she's actually a very viable point character if played to her full potential.

basically, i think she has some good stuff that bottom tier doesn't. if you ever get the chance, play against TC realkim's kula. fabricio from Mexicali also has a great Kula.

[marchefelix]

I thought hardly anyone played Raiden now. I'm really surprised to see him where he is.

[NissanZaxima]

I thought hardly anyone played Raiden now. I'm really surprised to see him where he is.

KaneBlueRiver just won Northwest Majors with Raiden/Takuma/Vice. Really nasty Raiden.

On the subject of Kula I think her neutral game is really good (her B button in general is insane) and doesn't have a lot of weaknesses, she just can't do damage like some of the top/high tiers can. For a character with no command grab or a reliable cross up she has nasty pressure especially in the corner where it is really easy to get opponents to thanks to the nature of her moves.

I think he is about as middle of the pack as you can get in this game.

[xZEPPELIx]

Ive been maining Raiden for the past couple months.  Raiden is a good character but really hard to use.  He has a very hard to time againt the top tiers especially characters like the Iori's and Kyo's.  There agility makes them difficult to hit and Raiden's large size makes their cross-ups difficult to block.

Raiden's saving grace is that his dmg output is crazy good even with the nerfed dropkicks.  Once he gets close to the corner he can start doing is super dmging dropkick combos.  Also his HOP CD is very good (it's as fast as Takuma's and Hwa Jai's).  His overhead is really fast (faster than Kyo and Kim's I believe) and his cr.C is super good too.

Unfortunately some characters in the cast can punish Raiden hard after blocking tackles (especially King and Hwa Jai).  Most of the cast can punish it when they have meter.

Also people being unfamiliar with Raiden goes a long way rofl.  I wish I had gdlk defense like Kaoru lol

[NissanZaxima]

Not knowing the Raiden matchup does indeed go a long ways but I feel like he is a solid character. He does have issues when characters like Kyo or Iori start jumping on him.

[mechanica]

Raiden definitely has issues against the top tier hop pressure characters, but I think he's high tier anyway. Most the just-under-top-tiers have issues in those matchups. I think that 1) having anywhere juggle tools automatically puts you pretty high tier. Being able to convert off nearly anything is an incredible tool to have, and 2) having an overhead that can be canceled without HD is also extremely useful. Couple that with a 1f cmd grab, a great anti-air dp move, and insane damage output and that's a recipe for high tier character. He definitely has glaring weaknesses but the tools are all there.

As for Kula, I think she's underrated. I can't agree with people putting her at the bottom. Having a long range 4f normal that is special cancelable alone is amazing. She gets full punishes (that many characters can't even get) leading to safejumps pretty easily. Couple that with 2-hit throw normals that are cancelable (which lead to great corner damage for just 1 stock on hit), an amazingly fast/active/lengthy j.B, and amazing guard gauge depletion due to her weird stand A bug, she's solid mid to me. Her DP is okay too. She suffers from not having an overhead and ineffecient damage on her drive cancels but they all lead to easy safejumps in the corner which helps balance it out.

Leona is NOT bottom tier, surprised we're not past this assumption yet. Neither is Billy, especially after his b+A xx spinny staff free cancel tech, he gets great damage.

It's so hard to put people in bottom tier in this game, since the balance is good. Mai and Elisabeth are the two worst characters to me. Mai just has to work a lot harder than the rest, and elisabeth is just so damn stubby she has zero ground game aside from gimmicky slap spam. The fact that she almost has to take to the air to mount an offense really cripples her IMO.


Oh boy there's some nastiness going on in here. Ralf better than Kim? Dive bomber safe at all times? EXs that make up for his weaknesses? Yikes. Not gonna go into that, but no, no, no.

[davidkong07]

LOL who said Ralf is better than Kim? LOLOLOLOL

[The Fluke]

Ralfs heavy dive punch is pretty much unpunishable on block for some characters unless i've missed something vital. it has startup that he can be hit out of though and it can be rolled on sight and punished as he lands. There are ofcourse also character specific punishes, Ryo can parry it's two hits and then cancel into hcb.D for good damage, if it carries to a corner he gets a srk.C followup.

Kulas close s.C is easily punishable on block for all characters so she pretty much has to cancel it wich in turn means that as long as her opponent has meter there is a risk of him/her gc rolling the second hit of s.C and probably getting a free punish if the kula player is prone to ice breath. her other specials are punishable on block i believe. I think she is good, but some of her normals are lacking and there are holes in her game plan imo.

If you were to make a simpler list of only three groups, how would you place characters?

[LoyalSol]

Leona is NOT bottom tier, surprised we're not past this assumption yet. Neither is Billy, especially after his b+A xx spinny staff free cancel tech, he gets great damage.

Why people continue to say both those characters are weak is beyond me.  Billy has a smothering pressure game when used properly.   Not just that he converts counter hit C+Ds into large combos way easier than 95% of the cast with his f+B pogo hop.  He can confirm a counter hit into a 40% combo from a decent distance away and in some cases even mid screen!

The thing with Billy is he is a character who is a no thrills character in the sense that his game plan seems bland, but it is very effective.  It's all about controlling the opponent once you hit that sweet range.

[Frofighter]

Leona is NOT bottom tier, surprised we're not past this assumption yet. Neither is Billy, especially after his b+A xx spinny staff free cancel tech, he gets great damage.

Why people continue to say both those characters are weak is beyond me.  Billy has a smothering pressure game when used properly.   Not just that he converts counter hit C+Ds into large combos way easier than 95% of the cast with his f+B pogo hop.  He can confirm a counter hit into a 40% combo from a decent distance away and in some cases even mid screen!

The thing with Billy is he is a character who is a no thrills character in the sense that his game plan seems bland, but it is very effective.  It's all about controlling the opponent once you hit that sweet range.

I can't say much about Leona, but with Billy it's probably the feeling about his reward for playing his poke-based defense isn't as good as what characters with strong offense and damage get for when they do crack him open. I personally think David's list has him below where he should be, though.

Speaking of underrated, that Daimon kid. I'll admit he's matchup dependent, but he feels so oppressive to fight against. Maybe it's that I play a team of Terry, Iori (Claw) and Kim, but he feels like one of the most difficult characters to fight at close and mid-close range because you're always guessing, plus his j.CD rewards him with anything from an instant in to a wall-bounce combo. As per David's list I see him in the A tier in there. I learned King just for this character.

[LoyalSol]

Leona is NOT bottom tier, surprised we're not past this assumption yet. Neither is Billy, especially after his b+A xx spinny staff free cancel tech, he gets great damage.

Why people continue to say both those characters are weak is beyond me.  Billy has a smothering pressure game when used properly.   Not just that he converts counter hit C+Ds into large combos way easier than 95% of the cast with his f+B pogo hop.  He can confirm a counter hit into a 40% combo from a decent distance away and in some cases even mid screen!

The thing with Billy is he is a character who is a no thrills character in the sense that his game plan seems bland, but it is very effective.  It's all about controlling the opponent once you hit that sweet range.

I can't say much about Leona, but with Billy it's probably the feeling about his reward for playing his poke-based defense isn't as good as what characters with strong offense and damage get for when they do crack him open. I personally think David's list has him below where he should be, though.

Defense?  Billy is an offensive character.   His game is not about opening you up fast it is about grinding you down.  He basically is a character who controls you.  The thing about Billy is he doesn't even have to be doing anything for you to be in a bad situation.   

The thing is though you need to have a really good set of fundamentals and be able to anticipate your opponents moves to make Billy scary, but if you can do that Billy is one of the best point characters IMO.   He doesn't need meter to work his core game. 

[Frofighter]

Leona is NOT bottom tier, surprised we're not past this assumption yet. Neither is Billy, especially after his b+A xx spinny staff free cancel tech, he gets great damage.

Why people continue to say both those characters are weak is beyond me.  Billy has a smothering pressure game when used properly.   Not just that he converts counter hit C+Ds into large combos way easier than 95% of the cast with his f+B pogo hop.  He can confirm a counter hit into a 40% combo from a decent distance away and in some cases even mid screen!

The thing with Billy is he is a character who is a no thrills character in the sense that his game plan seems bland, but it is very effective.  It's all about controlling the opponent once you hit that sweet range.

I can't say much about Leona, but with Billy it's probably the feeling about his reward for playing his poke-based defense isn't as good as what characters with strong offense and damage get for when they do crack him open. I personally think David's list has him below where he should be, though.

Defense?  Billy is an offensive character.   His game is not about opening you up fast it is about grinding you down.  He basically is a character who controls you.  The thing about Billy is he doesn't even have to be doing anything for you to be in a bad situation.   

The thing is though you need to have a really good set of fundamentals and be able to anticipate your opponents moves to make Billy scary, but if you can do that Billy is one of the best point characters IMO.   He doesn't need meter to work his core game. 

I guess we just define stuff differently, because even though Billy's rush-down works at midrange I look at his game plan of walling off your options with his pokes as being more defensive than your typical Kyo-style rush-down, but I won't split hairs over semantics here. The point was that I think people underrate Billy because they view his ability to actually get combos off his hits to be relatively low and even though he has you trapped if he ever screws up or you find an opening against him you can respond by dealing all that damage right back to him in one go, depending on your character and the opening you find.

Again, I do disagree with that view of Billy (I think he's pretty good), but I'm giving my possibility on why people might underrate him. They do so at their own risk, IMO.

Also I hope we've got some surprises waiting for this year's Evo. Last year's stories were Kim (the strongest overall performing char at the tourney), Duolon and Chin. For some reason I'm thinking Ryo, K', or Daimon (if not all three), especially Ryo. That dude scares me.

[Sharnt]

Also I hope we've got some surprises waiting for this year's Evo. Last year's stories were Kim (the strongest overall performing char at the tourney), Duolon and Chin. For some reason I'm thinking Ryo, K', or Daimon (if not all three), especially Ryo. That dude scares me.

Ex Iori Benimaru

Yang yao ren and other people who are doing crazy shit with their fingers are coming this year.

Oh and saiki, don't forget saiki.

[Kane317]

Also I hope we've got some surprises waiting for this year's Evo. Last year's stories were Kim (the strongest overall performing char at the tourney), Duolon and Chin. For some reason I'm thinking Ryo, K', or Daimon (if not all three), especially Ryo. That dude scares me.

Ex Iori Benimaru

Yang yao ren and other people who are doing crazy shit with their fingers are coming this year.

Oh and saiki, don't forget saiki.

To be fair, there's always been quite a lot of Ex Iories and Benies.

Xian was seen doing the Flame Iori rekkas loops on Reynald at CEO yesterday--scary stuff.

[Frofighter]

So even though Evo was far more of a player story than a character story, for me here were a few notable character stories (good and bad) from evo:

Kim: This guy. Just about everyone overall had a Kim on their team and he showed a huge level of flexibility excelling in all three positions on a team. Not a surprise and he completely solidified why he's thought of as one of the best.

Hwa Jai: The notable absentee from Evo. We were quaking in our boots about this drunk loon and he never showed up. Gotta wonder why players didn't see him as the choice for them.

Chin: The old man was back with a vengeance this year with notable play from Reynald and Fox among others. Having arguably the best EX moves in the game created an aura of fear of him and I think he could still yet rise among the game's strongest characters.

Benimaru: Reynald exemplified why Beni is so damn powerful even without the infinite. Excellent normals and space contorl, as well as going from mix-up to mix-up kept everyone looking silly with their heads getting grabbed over and over. I gotta say though it felt like people were generally too scared to deal with Iaido kick on block.

EX Iori: The infinite disappeared completely as an infinite in top 8 which showed his players haven't brought him to full potential yet. His impact was good but honestly I can't help but feel more was expected of him.

Duolon: Another year proving he's an excellent point character and among the best at that. The commentary team described him as "The perfect character to hold a lead with" and that is so true. However, many things he got away with before were punished this year showing the progress the scene has made against him.

Ryo: The character I wanted to see make it far and that he did. I do think he was less impactful for Woo then either Kim or Takuma, though. His midscreen control really showed itself earlier in the set against Reynald's Kim and Ryo does present a problem for characters who can't force him to break his hold on the midscreen.

Mr. Karate: Overall it really feels like even though we still think he's the best this character does not cause the heart attacks he once did. Better understanding of how to fight him has helped players come a long way in their matchup with him and hopefully means more appearances for....

Takuma: I was chatting with a bunch of people and kept calling him the final boss of KOF. He pulled out some tough matches and wins, and made a case for himself not to be forgotten in the wake of Mr. Karate. That one-hit pain factor on him makes people scared, and fear breeds idiocy and bad decisions.

If Mr. KOF had gotten further I know I would also have been talking about Ash outperforming expectations as well, though he already did quite well as it is. Overall with so many characters to talk about in terms of learning new things show and seeing awesome performances, we can say this year's tournament was incredible in that regard. The learners in us have a LOT to take away from this tourney and a lot more to explore yet.